Cigarette Burns Eye

Posted: April 24, 2014 | tobacco | burn, cigarette, eye, smoking, tobacco | 0 Comments

We all know the dangers associated with smoking: lung cancer, heart disease and even impotence among others. With all the long-term health issues smoking creates we often overlook the short-term dangers.

Recently, a 2-year-old girl was hospitalized after being accidentally burnt in her eye by a lit cigarette. The child was at a state fair in Minnesota with her parents when it happened. While in a crowd, a nearby smoker lowered her cigarette after taking a drag and unknowingly put the lit end of the smoke directly into the girl’s eye. After being rushed to the hospital, it would be 18 hours before the girls could even open her eye.

Doctors expect the girl to make a full recovery but the incident, albeit accidental, raises some eyebrows about public smoking. As if the exposure to second hand smoke wasn’t reason enough for parents and non-smokers to be concerned about their proximity to smokers, burns are more likely to happen in crowded areas as this poor 2-year-old found out.

“With the thousands of people at the fair, I guess we feel there maybe should be designated smoking areas,” the girl’s mother said. “This could have been way more serious, this could have affected her vision for the rest of her life.”

Smoking is banned at the Minnesota State Fair but with 200,00 attendees on any given day, enforcement is a logistical nightmare.